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so-called travelogues

2006-10-02T02:22:00.000+05:30

So I returned from my Hamlet....

It was quite a refreshing couple of days, in a weird way.. Coz initially, I didn't wanna go. I barely had a few minutes to pack. I had to be dragged to the car, kicking and screaming. So if you see scratches on the side of my car, that would be my nails doing what they do best (besides beating the crap outta Kirk Hammet, of course !.. jus kidding.. )

Anyways.... i finally plonked myself into the bus seat and was off.... on a 11 hour journey across AP. Note - I hate, i absolutely detest, long bus rides. Reasons will be elaborated upon in the near future. The bus left the bus station at 8:15 pm and we were supposed to reach the Hamlet at 7 am-ish. I steeled myself for the ride ahead and tried to get some sleep. I finally managed to get my body into a semi-conscious state (which is the maximum extent of relaxation i can achieve in a rattling bus), when my brother shoves me aside, opens the window, and vomits. Poor kid. And the lil tyke was sick till the time we reached the Hamlet. Thanks to him, we lost 3 plastic bags to the countryside. May they rest in peace.

But after that , it was kind of an idyllic existence. There's something about life in a village. Its so uncluttered. And the air - aah..... bliss.. There was absolutely no sign of pollution.

So all these days, all I did was sleep like a log and eat like a pig. And then i started getting withdrawal symptoms.

"GASP !! I need.......... internet......... check mail..........orkut....... AAAAAAA !! HELP !!"

yeah yeah... I succumbed.

so much for my idyllic existence.

Thanks to my ever-effective tantrums, I came back.... after surviving another 11 hours in a deathtrap masquerading as a bus. I swear, I heard rattlesnakes make the same sounds that the bus did. But this time the journey was uneventful. No vomit. Bro decided to sensibly cut down on the input to his body. No input = No output. QED.

The night sky, though..... Mindblowing.... I actually saw stars !!! (No. That wasnt my brother giving me one of his trademark whacks on the head) and the sky was pitch-black. And the landscape.... there were no buildings, no houses , no trees. Just Blackness. All I saw when I looked out the window was a speckled sky. That's it. And then I did something totally uncharacteristic of me.

I switched off the MP3 player.

Silence.

It was beautiful. One of those moments that I hoped would last forever. The dark sky. Uncluttered landscape. And silence. How often do we city-slickers get this ?

*Sigh*

Anyways, the bus groaned and moaned its way back into Hyderabad. And here I am.

till my next post.... adios !

Disjointed discontent

2006-09-19T21:42:00.000+05:30

I think I've lived a lifetime these past 10 days. I've come to realise how fickle our existence is. Everything we take for granted can be easily take away from us. And its so goddamn easy to do that, it isnt even funny. How many times have you given a second thought to your freedom? The freedom to live your life the way you want to. The freedom to live your life unfettered by another person. And justice. 'The innocent shall never suffer'.

But they do.

And what's worse, the fact that they suffer is accepted as a part and parcel of life. As one of my friends put it, "Life isn't fair". Well if it isn't, why do we bother living ? And why can't life ever be unfair in favor of the people who really deserve it. I'd like to believe that it all evens out in the end. But does it ?

I can't stand injustice. And i can't stand it when people's lives are played with just to satisfy the whims and fancies of the powerful. I hate it. And no amount of glossing over or justification will ever make me accept it.

The very foundations on which i've built my life are not as stable as i thought them to be. The old insecurities have reared their ugly heads again. I thought they were dead. But they're back. And they're uglier than ever.

But I will survive. I'll come out stronger. I know.

My Crazy Friends

2006-06-27T02:12:00.000+05:30

I thought I’d start off blogging with a ONE disclaimer and leave it at that, but this post is very likely to ruffle a few feathers and be the reason why I’m gonna be slapped with a defamation suit or two. Hence, make way for another disclaimer….

********************************************************************

DISCLAIMER:

This post intends to describe actual human beings who confess to being my friends (under third-degree interrogation, of course) with all their quirks and eccentricities. It does not intend to insult/humiliate the aforementioned people or focus on their limitations. The Author has her own share of those. What it does intend to do is, to focus on what makes them unique, what makes them funny, what makes them worth unflinching loyalty … in short, what makes them………..

My Crazy Friends.

********************************************************************

I was wondering in which order to begin describing my friends since that alone can cause a few problems (“Your honor, my client was ranked No. 5 in the list despite knowing and spending a large amount of resources on the accused for over 3 years”)

So I decided to be a cop-out and do it in random order………

Nadeem Mohsin:

1600/1600….. That’s what he scored on the GRE. It’s like the mark of the Beast…. Permanently stamped on his head!! He’s this insanely brilliant creature who intends to attain God-hood someday (Ha!). He’s also my godfather in Blogosphere who bullied me into blogging. Our entire class is petrified of him. In fact, people have been known to run for shelter when he lands in college. But I guess, sheer genius is difficult to fathom for ‘mere mortals’, as he calls them... Modestly calls himself the Geek God. Has this kick-ass sense of humour which I wish the rest of the class could witness. It’s simply amazing to talk to him because you just cannot let your mind shut down while talking to him. Other people put me into Auto-pilot mode (“hi! How are you? I’m ok... so wassup? ….really?,,,, uh-huh….uh-huh………uh-huh……uh *bloody* huh!!!!”) but he so does not!! Sometimes though, he tends to ramble on with no regard for human life. I’ve seen people walking around college like zombies with glazed eyes. That’s when you shake your head, smile ruefully and say….’So Nadeem’s at it again, huh?’ but the thing that gave me a serious kick was when I would say, “Shut up, Nadeem!” and he would dutifully stop. Now how many people can say that to the Geek God? ;-)

Sagar Yerunkar:

Focus on the first name here. Now for all those who aren’t acquainted with me, my surname happens to be Sagar. This one, tiny lil factoid has entertained Sagar’s friends, my friends and our class for years. I think it’s about time I demand royalties.

One more factoid coming up…

My middle name is Mary… Add a dash of bureaucratic ineptitude and what u have is a recipe for disaster… well, not quite disaster …. But jokes and mishaps to last at least 4 years...

The attendance sheet in my class read like a wedding card for an entire semester...

‘SAGAR MARRY SHARON’

All that was required was, ‘Mrs. & Mr. Yerunkar request the pleasure of your company at the nuptials of their youngest son…….’etc etc and we were all set…..

Laugh all you want. I’m used to it. Sagar’s friends apparently still get their kicks from my name… oops… OUR name…

The way we greet each other hasn’t changed for ages…

S. Sagar: Hi, Sagar!

Sagar. Y: Bol, Sagar!

That’s a little too much ‘Sagar’, don’t you think?

And that’s just the name………………Now for the person….

Sagar is entertaining, to say the least…. will bombard you with his incessant questions. He’s somewhat like a 4 yr old, in that respect, only taller. Also, he tends to observe details that NOBODY else does… and sometimes that frightens you because you don’t quite know what he has already noted down about you and filed away for future reference.

Has pulled a chair out from under me when I was gonna sit on it. In front of the entire batch. I still haven’t let go of it because I ended up cussing aloud and the next thing I know….. The entire batch has got this shocked look on their faces (“She used the F-word!!!” *Shock* *Horror*).

I call him SCARA. All my fellow survivors of BE Computers will know what that means. Ask Nadeem if the name doesn’t ring a bell. And as to why I call him SCARA…. Ask the Horse himself. (Straight from the horse’s mouth… geddit?? ok... that was lame… but I think I’m allowed a PJ or two in every post…)

…………….. A microscopic thought emerges from the depths of my brain……………..

This post is getting too long….. So I shall continue about My Crazy Friends™ in the next post….

Pet peeve(s) of the day:

1) Grainy images!!

Like a good girl, I decided to catch some of the World Cup action. And guess what greets me? ….. I think I ruined that question by answering it myself earlier. Silly me. Anyway, thanks to the most moronic cable operator on earth, I can’t watch a single match clearly. I ended up watching the aforementioned match (Italy vs. USA) due to sheer willpower. (“They can’t beat me!! I’ll show ‘em!! I’ll show ‘em all!!”) Harsha Bhogle sounded as if someone sandpapered his throat and I ended up squinting at the TV trying to make sense of it all. Tried headphones too. No use. I searched for Star World or Zee Café to alleviate my misery…….. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. To add to my misery, channels like Maa TV and CCC are crystal clear, which makes sense considering the fact that we’re in Andhra-land…

But I still can’t see anything clearly!!!

Oh, that reminds me… I’m due for an eye check-up...

2) Um… I really don’t know what to name this pet peeve

Last night, I needed to make a trip to the loo. So like all normal human beings, I charted a course toward it. I turned on the light switch and was surprised to see……... nothing. It was pitch dark. “Power outages are common”, u say. Ah, but no, here comes the catch... the rest of the house is flooded with light. In fact, the room adjacent to the loo had electricity happily coursing through its veins. So I shrugged n said “what the hell….I’ll try another one” and went to the loo in my brother’s room… that’s when it turned into a tragi-comedy. No electricity there as well. Yep, yep… Bro’s room is well lit, Bro’s loo is not. Asked Bro about it... he said it’s a common occurrence. Get used to it. Went to another room. Same problem there.

Apparently, I live in a house where the bathrooms have ganged up against me.

Don’t ask me what I did next.

I’m warning you.

PS – I was talking to a friend and she mentioned that her friend was cribbing about her cousins – Nefertiti, Palymino, and Babylonia. Those cousins had other cousins called Horatio and Horastus who had buddies called Light, Bright and Right.

I kid thee not.

ROTFL.

PS v1.1 – This was a loooooooong post. And I digressed. Again. Clearly, I’m incapable of brevity.

First Ever Blog

2006-06-18T02:00:00.000+05:30

DISCLAIMER: what you are about to read
1) is nothing of value
2) does not improve the moral tone of the world
3) is not gonna win the Booker
4) won’t be read by future generations
5) won’t be analysed by Lit classes
6) might annoy you
7) or waste your time
so if you agree to the above mentioned terms and conditions, click here…….. no wait, that’s something else…..
so if you’re cool with the fact that you might plod through the entire page and end up with your IQ less by 10 points, read on……….

*Start of First Ever Blog*

So I decided to start blogging...

Lame start to my First Ever Blog, I know.... but as the disclaimer states so clearly, I’m not here to pontificate or be a shining light in the world of literature... I leave that to the Pope and Nadeem (in that order… though Nadeem can pontificate, too )... The following words are gonna constitute my incoherent ramblings on life, people, music and whatever catches my attention span (which is lesser than that of a house-fly...)

Anyways, so here I am in the fair city of Hyderabad. My friends know what I REALLY feel about this city... suffice to say that I’d love to let a tornado loose on this city... but then my feelings about Hyderabad merit a stand-alone post... (Note to Self: one post about Hyderabad, comin’ thru!!) I just moved here from Bombay a.k.a Mumbai (Jai Maharashtra!!!) and 2 days into my vacation, I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I never thought a city could stir up all those intense emotions which lay dormant in me for so long. I went out for a movie today (MI3, btw) and as the car wound its way through the city I found myself scanning the signboards for anything that resembled the Devnagari script, and whenever I spotted one, my eyes misted over…..*sniffs, wipes eyes ,and steels herself for the struggle ahead*

I’ll try and stop griping about Hyderabad…. Scout’s honor (I was never one…. Ha! Fooled ya!)

So my cousin and my brother decided to catch a movie - ‘Madagascar’, to be precise, and since I just landed in Hyderabad (henceforth referred to as hyd) and had no clue as to what was going on, I consented to tag along like a loyal lil puppy. Now, here’s the fun part – the movie was at 8 am...

All those earthlings (and a few Martians , too )who profess to being my friends know that there is one thing that I absolutely cannot do, no matter how much I con myself into believing that I can…..its something that is inherent in me…

I can never give up my sleep…

Never…

Not for a movie…. not for college… not for family functions… not for the Queen of England, should she decide to grace my home with her presence (Yo, Lizzie!! that’s a hint, honey…)

But I digress…

So since my biological clock has more sense than I do, I stayed fast asleep. But my poor cousin and her trusty sidekick trudged along to the theatre, valiantly suppressing their yawns and saw………….… shutters!!!!!! (At this point of the story I collapsed in laughter... the I-told-you-so-and-i-can’t-believe-you-went-and-did-that-despite-my-sage-advice type of laughter) They walked up to the watchman there and asked him about the movie. He said, ‘there is no movie at 8am, maydam’. Now that’s another thing that gets my goat (I’ve yet to name it, though)... No Andhra-ite worth his gongura-pacchadi will call a lady ‘Madam’ or ‘Ma’am’… it’ll always be ‘MAYDAM’… I’ve tried curing my dad of the habit… and learnt the hard way that there is some truth to the proverb ‘old habits die hard’….

And I digress again…

After making a few cursory rounds of the theatre, The Brother and The Cousin admitted defeat and returned home…. And I was still asleep… so after a few minutes…. ok fine, dammit…. hours… I woke up, apologized to my cousin for oversleeping and asked her whether they missed the movie. She exchanged sheepish glances with my brother and proceeded to tell me the whole story……

O Almighty Lord, who hath bestowed upon me the inability to rise at the crack of dawn…,. I thank thee!!

*End of First Ever Blog*

PS – This blog comes to you under duress. Nadeem swore to send across a virtual whack if I didn’t blog... and I don’t fancy whacks, even virtual ones... So if you liked it, comment….and if u dint like it, you know who to gun down ;-)……… btw, De Rossi just got red-carded.. McBride is all bloody faced…its one-all so far…. and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you probably live on Venus.

Song(s) of the Post:

Hemorrhage by Chris Daughtry

The song was originally sung by Fuel, but the lead singer of Fuel sounds like Himesh Reshammiya with a blocked nasal cavity (come to think of it…. Himesh DOES sound like that…) and he lacks the passion that Chris displays in his singing. The Fuel version doesn’t even come close to the one that Chris made his own. It’s just the kind of anthemic song that you can picture 50,000 people in Wembley Stadium singing along to and strangely, it’s perfect for those times when all you wanna do is cut yourself away from the world and drown yourself in music.

PS – I can’t get away from this, being female and all that…... Chris is hot! Just the kind of rocker-dude that leaves me starry-eyed and drooling…

Ya Ali – Gangster (OST)

I’m a sucker for a song with a good bass line, a thumping beat and a melodious tune. The singer’s voice adds to the beauty of this song – very clear and shows amazing control over the twists in the song. The girl with the breathy voice and the Spanish guitar interlude sort of ruin the mood of the song a bit, but an excellent song overall. I tend to forget what’s happening around me when I listen to this song.